


Red In My Ledger (I'd Like to Wipe it Out)

by Thousandsmiles



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Poetry, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 16:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18832831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thousandsmiles/pseuds/Thousandsmiles
Summary: Poem from Natasha's POV during Endgame leading up to her choice. More of a character study than anything else.Her hair drips off her shoulders in rivulets of red,Red in her ledger,Red in her soul,Her scars are scribed in red,Her guilt is written in blocky, red finger swipes,Her failures are…Her failures are open wounds that won’t ever heal.





	Red In My Ledger (I'd Like to Wipe it Out)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything in Marvel. 
> 
>  
> 
> So I hope you guys enjoy. I don't know if trigger warnings are needed but read with care. It's been awhile since I wrote poetry for a fandom and it feels like a bit since I've written in this fandom so I apologize if it's OOC.

Her hair drips off her shoulders in rivulets of red,

Red in her ledger,

Red in her soul,

Her scars are scribed in red,

Her guilt is written in blocky, red finger swipes,

Her failures are…

Her failures are open wounds that won’t ever heal.

 

How do you balance this much red?

Is there any way to make up for this much death?

There is no way for her to get back into the black,

No way to balance this account,

She is going into bankruptcy,

The world has foreclosed on her,

She’s lost all she ever guarded,

And she is left behind,

Poor, destitute,

Acutely aware with each breath

of what her inadequacies have cost.

 

It is torture of a most exquisite kind.

 

She has borne the weight of failure before,

But she’s never borne it with this much of a heart before.

It disarms her,

It carves out her lungs,

Leaves her gasping and breathless,

Each pump of her heart

an endless litany of no’s,

Of denial,

Of jagged edges of a broken heart

scraping against each other.

 

Second chances are things of myth,

But she lives in a world of gods and monsters,

Of magic and science,

Of everything she was never trained for,

But Clint Barton once held out his hand

to a grim reaper with red hair

confident that it could change,

could save lives,

Second chances are a myth,

But they exist.

 

Whatever it takes.

 

She breathes the words out like a mantra,

A prayer,

A hope she grabs and holds and refuses to let go,

It’s a chance to write in black once more,

Balance the accounts in a leger she had given

up on ever writing in again.

 

Whatever it takes.  

 

Maybe she’ll sleep again,

Maybe she’ll be able to breathe again

instead of choking on the guilt

she’s been harboring for five years,

Maybe she’ll stop hearing her own voice,

Smug, confident,

“We’re the one’s best qualified to protect it,”

A lie,

Liar and she hadn’t even known,

Her nightmares are filled with images

of her own over-assured form.

 

Whatever it takes.

 

And Clint is hero,

He is a hero because he still wants to save someone like her,

Ready to thrown himself of a cliff,

Lose his family,

Save the world,

Ready to stretch that hand out for her

and save her all over again,

But she can’t see him added to her ledger,

Can’t die with so much red

screaming out of her very pores,

So she fights him,

Fights him to that edge,

It’s her turn to save him,

It’s time for her to balance her books once and for all.

 

“Please let me go,” she says,

She’s fighting,

And she’s not,

She’s a grim reaper,

But Clint Barton was right all those years ago,

She could change,

She did,

She has,

And she can die a hero,

She can trade her black soul

for something light,

So she does.

 

Whatever it takes.

 

She falls and revels in how much it feels like flying.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me what you think.


End file.
